Original Of The Species
by Lady Silvamord
Summary: Why Kalasin of Conté and Ozorne Tasikhe are the most unique couple you'll never get to see. AU, obviously.


**Original Of The Species**

_Why Kalasin and Ozorne are the most unique couple you'll never get to see. AU, obviously. This works with a modification to the timeline in which, instead of Ozorne suggesting that Kalasin marry Kaddar during Emperor Mage, Ozorne marries her himself, when she is approximately fourteen years old. _

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**(one) at twilight**

Ozorne spends his evenings and nights doing extensive paperwork. He has never been a very organized worker, and parchment litters the table in front of him as well as the majority of the golden suede sofa he sits on. Kalasin spends that time seated in the armchair near him, resting her head on the cushions as she watches the complexity of the statements he etches out. The only sound in the room is the soft scratching of Ozorne's quill – a sound Kalasin falls asleep to on a regular basis, snoring softly and dangling her arms off the chair.

Although Ozorne finds this habit of hers peculiar and rather vexing (and the snoring bothers him, to boot), he always carries her out of the room and puts her to bed.

**(two) love before time**

Kalasin suffers her crush in silence, despite the fact that she knows that Ozorne will never like her like _that, _despite _everything,_ she still adores him.

**(three) the look in your eyes**

Kalasin has never seen eyes the color of Ozorne's before – warm amber, like the tawny coat of a tiger cub.

**(four) snow days**

Even after years of living in Carthak, Kalasin still misses snow and becomes rather despondent around winter. Ozorne tries to compensate by turning the air temperature magic regulator down to a rather frigid temperature. Kalasin shivers and threatens to develop a cold and buries herself in blankets while drinking hot chocolate. One night, she remarks to him, sneezing almost every other word, that it feels _just like _Tortall in winter.

Ozorne feels rather accomplished.

**(five) wishful thinking**

Sometimes, Ozorne really, _really _wishes Kalasin were older.

**(six) firelight**

Kalasin likes utilizing the fireplace in Ozorne's study. This fireplace has not been used for about a decade, but since Kalasin moves in, she likes making a large, roaring fire and sitting in front of it on the bearskin rug, thinking deep thoughts and sometimes drawing pictures of birds and butterflies. Ozorne finds it entirely too stuffy and warm and he absolutely _refuses _to be displaced from the study that is his (not hers) by right, but he doesn't have the heart to tell her to go and sit in the fire-place-less sitting room, all the same.

**(seven) pink lemonade**

"Try it. It's _really _good."

Ozorne gives the glass a dubious look.

Kalasin shakes the glass in front of his nose insistently.

A stare-down proceeds. To his dismay, Kalasin does not back down as she usually does, so he takes the chilled glass with a long-suffering sigh.

Kalasin nudges him in the ribs. "Drink it!"

Ozorne takes a tentative sip. Silence.

"It's good, isn't it?" she beams.

More silence.

"…Yes."

Kalasin beams.

(Ozorne takes great pains to let this never be revealed to her, but after this event, he has a glass of pink lemonade brought up to his study after work every day.)

**(eight) but not today**

Not today.

Not now.

Not this week.

Maybe next month.

Maybe next year.

Ozorne watches Kalasin grow up and thinks that time has _never _crawled by so slowly.

**(nine) in the heat of the moment**

Kalasin doesn't know _what _it is that possesses her to do it, but five minutes before the clock strikes midnight and her sixteenth birthday is almost officially over, she pushes Ozorne up against a wall and kisses him with all the passion she can muster.

Ozorne has enough time to feel dazed and mentally utter twenty different swear words, all while trying his best to press his traitorous hands behind his back, before Kalasin disengages herself and runs off down the hallway.

He doesn't see her for the rest of that night. She comes home the next morning, red-eyed and dressed in the same ballgown and smelling of the musty armchairs in the library.

They pretend it never happened.

**(ten) impressionable youth**

Despite, for all intents and purposes, growing up with him, Kalasin remains impervious to Ozorne's somewhat jaded and manipulative outlook on the world. She is mostly happy and optimistic and still has tendencies to think that everybody is her friend. Ozorne despairs, although privately, he considers her rather "unique" attitude to be somewhat of a breath of fresh air.

**(eleven) the years gone past**

Time manifests itself in different ways – from the first white strand to appear in Ozorne's pure auburn hair, which he promptly plucks away and burns in the palm of his hand, before trying to forget it had ever existed, to the day when Kalasin throws herself into his arms and he finally feels free to kiss her back without any pain of conscience.

**(twelve) fountain of youth **

"I have not watched _clouds_ in more years than I care to discuss."

Kalasin smiles winningly and tugs on his hand. "There's a first time for everything."

**(thirteen) wrong number**

"In _Mithros' name, _Jonathan," Thayet hisses, her hands clenching into fists. "He is _twenty years _older than her."

Jon rubs his eyes wearily and stands up. "I sent the official betrothal papers back to Carthak today. The wedding's going to be in spring."

Thayet draws herself up to her full height, her eyes flashing with anger, and he has never seen her this enraged in his life. Words, apparently, seem to fail her, and she turns around and stalks out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

He sits back down again, reaches for the bottle of brandy in the top left drawer with slightly shaking hands, and tries not to think of his little girl.

**(fourteen) bubbles**

It is one of Ozorne's quirks that he enjoys long, luxurious bubble baths. Kalasin finds it annoying that between said bubble baths, tending to his hair, and applying his cosmetics; her husband spends more time in the bathroom getting ready to face the world, than she does.

**(fifteen) vital signs**

"I'm going to massage your back to make sure the circulation is still working properly, all right?"

Ozorne steps away from his wife, looking distrustful. "That will not be necessary."

Kalasin places her hands on her hips and glares. "If you _insist _on repeatedly going off to war and sustaining physical injuries to yourself, the _least _you can do is entrust your recovery to a capable Healer."

Ozorne raises an eyebrow at her. "You are a hormonal seventeen-year-old female and you know it."

Kalasin turns an alarming shade of red and sputters in a very un-Empress-like fashion. "Well – excuse _me – _I'm not going to jump on and molest you as soon as I see you with your shirt off, you know!"

The Emperor crosses his arms. "I've had it happen too many times to be lacking in caution."

Kalasin takes a very deep breath and draws herself up to her full height, and for a moment, she looks just like the calm, capable Empress that she is growing up to be.

…Then she throws the nearest pillow at him, calls him insufferable, and leaves the room in a huff.

Ozorne shakes his head, amused in a somewhat twisted way, but wishing that his back wasn't hurting so badly.

A little while later, a rather abashed Kalasin pokes her head back into the bedroom. "You can keep your shirt on," she offers meekly, stepping inside.

Ozorne indicates that she may venture closer, as he tries his hardest to keep the expression of abject relief from showing on his face.

**(sixteen) blood pain**

Ozorne pushes her away, rather harder than he had intended. "You don't understand," he hisses.

She stumbles back a few paces, her hip colliding with his study desk. Unfazed by the sudden, sharp sting, she draws herself to her full height and glares up at him. "What I _do _understand is that you're causing me more pain by doing this than you would be if you just…" Kalasin shakes her head bitterly, before throwing the delicate tiara on her head to the floor. "Never mind. _You_ wouldn't understand."

His Empress leaves the room, then, without a backward glance at him. There are no tears, this time, but her feelings of hurt and indignation are almost tangible.

At length, Ozorne bends down, picking up the tiara. It is fragile and encrusted with diamonds, carefully chosen to complement her silvery gown. Her fit of temper has caused a few of the smaller jewels to disengage themselves, so they sprinkle against the carpet, catching the stray flickers of candlelight.

Times like this, he could almost convince himself that he hates her. He hates the million ways she has disrupted his life. He hates the way that she fits against him and the way she wraps her arms around his neck. If he could list everything about the girl that absolutely drives him mad…

Above all, he hates the indefinable emotion that fills him every time that he hurts her.

**(seventeen) laughter**

Kalasin claps her hands and actually _giggles_ at his expense.

Ozorne refuses to speak to her for two days, and would likely have gone on ignoring his existence if it hadn't been for one little thing.

"If you're going to ignore me every time I laugh at you… or your taking my kohl eyeliner or something, then you're going to spend a lot of our married life pretending that I don't exist," the fifteen-year-old points out sensibly.

Ozorne scowls.

Kalasin raises an eyebrow.

He asks her, grudgingly, if he could use the kohl eyeliner before all events of state, to prevent any further miscommunication.

She nods quite civilly, and saves the laughter for later.

**(eighteen) the seasons**

Ozorne suffers four seasons of madness with Kalasin.

In spring, she insists on taking long walks with him so that they may observe the blossoming gardens.

In summer, she interrupts his work so that she can drag him outside to watch clouds and perform inane chatter with her.

Autumn is somewhat better, although Ozorne absolutely hates it when Kalasin lies in the piles of fallen leaves. It's positively unhygienic.

Winter is, to Ozorne's relief, spent inside. In front of a fire. It makes him hot and sometimes he worries that Kalasin will singe her eyebrows off when she gets _too_ close, but, well…it isn't entirely unpleasant. Not in the least.

**(nineteen) the tears we shed**

Kalasin finds it entirely too irritating that she cries over Ozorne and Ozorne only gets vaguely teary-eyed over his birds. Therefore, she decides that she is not going to spend another moment of her life being tormented by their relationship…or, lack thereof.

This is only slightly hard to do. Kalasin manages to restrain any and all _tears, _but the amount of strain that puts on her body causes her to break out in a violent fit of hiccups. So she ends up curled pathetically in Ozorne's arms _again, _hiccupping disconsolately.

Sometimes it just seems that life is out to get her.

**(twenty) insanity **

Well.

He certainly wasn't the one who _asked _her to stop wearing decently modest clothes as soon as summer rolled around.

Honestly, seventeen years old or _not, _individuals who look like Kalasin should be forbidden from wearing short skirts or strapless corset tops. Certainly not both at the same time. Of course, one without the other would be even more scandalous, so…maybe it's for the best.

Kalasin chooses this particular moment to stroll back inside the sitting room, adorned in said inappropriate clothing. Ozorne determinedly does not look up from his book, not even when she smiles and sits down on the other side of him, stretching out her long, bare legs and perfectly manicured feet into his lap and sighs with contentment.

Ozorne's left eye twitches.

There are _so_ many things wrong with his life.

**(twenty-one) food is the way to a man's heart**

The first time Kalasin hears said statement, she takes into hand some rather creative interpretations of the intended message.

"I think it means you were supposed to cook for me," Ozorne points out rather mildly.

Kalasin raises an eyebrow, ceasing to trail the strawberry languidly against her bare collarbone.

"But don't let that stop you," he says hastily.

Kalasin smiles seductively. "That's what I thought."

**(twenty-two) silent words**

Ozorne has never actually told Kalasin that he loves her, but the fact is so apparent (by his standards), that Kalasin cannot find it in her heart to be coy about the fact or tease a confession out of him.

**(twenty-three) what you mean to me**

Kalasin's roles in his life are so varied and, well, unconventional that Ozorne himself, his great intellect aside, cannot even define them. There was a time he cared for her as one would a beloved younger sister or daughter, but in light of later events in their relationship, he can hardly _describe_ her as that. After all, society hardly looks kindly on men who get rather hot and bothered when their beloved younger sisters decide that they want to wear short skirts and strapless corsets. At the same time, she gives him so much more than he ever imagined a traditional wife or some of his ex-lovers ever could.

Ozorne thinks he's just going to give up on defining Kalasin one day. As hopelessly sentimental as it sounds, she loves him and she is, well, _herself, _and that is enough to content him, even though he will never admit it.

**(twenty-four) support**

Kalasin understands next to nothing about affairs of state, and really has no idea why Ozorne works himself into regular fits regarding said business. However, when he comes home late, after meetings that stretch odd hours into the night, he always finds a glass of wine waiting on the sitting room table, as well as a drowsy Kalasin, who asks him about his day and offers the appropriate commiserations.

More often than not, she ends up falling asleep during his spells of striding around the room and ranting, and he has to carry her back to their room and put her in bed. Ozorne still appreciates the sentiment, however.

**(twenty-five) miscommunication**

"Yourmakeupmakesyoulooklikeagirl."

Silence.

"Not that there's anything _wrong _with that! Personally, I think you're rather handsome."

More silence. Ozorne arches an eyebrow.

Kalasin, now thoroughly mortified, blushes and runs out of the room.

**(twenty-six) hair dye**

Kalasin watches Ozorne curiously, sitting on the edge of the bed as she holds her now-forgotten cerulean kohl eyeliner. "Can _I _paint my hair gold?" she inquires.

Ozorne pauses in his light golden dusting of his shoulder-length hair long enough to give her a politely incredulous look. "Of course not."

Kalasin permits herself to bounce once on the bed, impatient. "But _why_?"

Ozorne smirks at her in the mirror. "Darling, _you _got the lovely sapphire eyes. I need to have my own completely unique claim to beauty."

Kalasin frowns, completely unsure about whether he's actually…joking…or not. Either way, she decides, the effect is somewhat disturbing. She gets up and saunters past him, stopping at the doorway and cocking her head playfully. "Well, whatever are you going to do to compensate for your lack of a figure like _this_?"

Her subsequent action of slowly running her hands down the sides of said remarkable figure is enough to distract Ozorne from his personal grooming.

Kalasin smirks right back at him. "That's right."

**(twenty-seven) storm**

Kalasin is freezing, drenched to the bone, and shivering. However, her physical discomfort does nothing to dull her sharp mind, so when Ozorne opens the door to their rooms, looking rather surprised at her state, it is a simple matter to slip herself into his arms and against his chest as she shuts and locks the door, looking up at him with the most plaintive expression she can muster. "I'm so cold," she murmurs.

She feels his muscles tense with a not altogether unpleasant feeling of surprise, and he hesitates before running his warm palms down her shoulders and back, the barest tinges of worry evident in his voice. "We should warm you up."

Unseen to him, Kalasin smiles a little into the fabric of his tunic. "I would like that."

**(twenty-eight) last dance**

Ozorne watches with distinct distaste as the young lord releases Kalasin, bowing low to his Empress. "Save the last dance for me, Your Majesty?"

Kalasin smiles in her completely-beautiful-but-rather-noncommittal-way and inclines her head gracefully. She turns around, and squeaks with surprise upon almost colliding with her husband. "Ozorne! Um, my lord," she hastily corrects, for the sake of the couples surrounding them on the ballroom floor.

Ozorne gives no sign that he has heard her, other than proceeding to sweep her into his arms for the next dance. "You are _not _saving any dances for that little upstart," he declares as he spins her around carefully.

Kalasin giggles and gets a little bit closer than the dance requires, stretching up to wrap her arms around his neck. "I assume that you want the honor of the last dance?"

Ozorne gives her a deadpan look. "No, I _want_ to see a hormonal eighteen-year-old male with his hands all over you."

The Empress pretends obliviousness. "I know that would get you all hot and bothered and all, but I'd really rather dance with you."

Ozorne feels a tiny bit mollified.

**(twenty-nine) spontaneity**

Kalasin flings her arms around him and refuses to let go, and Ozorne pats her on the back a tad awkwardly, unsure how to explain to her that his going to war and escaping any bodily injury whatsoever are both regular occurrences, instead of incidences of freak luck.

**(thirty) paranoia**

"Honestly, Ozorne, it's just a cold – there was no need to terrify and interrogate the cooks so," a somewhat congested-sounding Kalasin ventures from her position, wrapped securely in two heavy blankets.

Ozorne glares for a moment before resuming pacing. "It could have been poison."

Kalasin sighs, relaxing against the cushions. "I'm your pretty little figurehead wife," she explains patiently. "Nobody cares enough to poison me."

Ozorne refrains from mentioning that, pretty little figurehead wife or not, she is one of the two people he actually feels anything for – and that several individuals would care very much about _that. _

**(thirty-one) opposites attract**

She is young, innocent, loved, carefree – everything that he is not. Ozorne hates to bow to a cliché, but he grudgingly admits to himself that he and Kalasin might just fit under that banner.

**(thirty-two) off balance**

Kalasin absolutely hates the effect that Ozorne has on her. She hates her tendency to get giddy at times, she hates the things that her body does when he raises his eyebrow at her just so, and she absolutely despises the fact that he is the only person in the world who has ever made her cry. She hates trying to look perfectly adult and grown-up so that she may catch his notice in the way she wants.

At the risk of sounding hopelessly cliché, she just hates that she loves him.

**(thirty-three) in the moonlight**

It's too dark for them to be reasonably out and the light of the full moon is the only thing that illuminates the courtyard – and, as a result, Kalasin. She looks vaguely ethereal, her ivory skin almost glowing in the moonlight. The pearls adorning her hair almost look like tiny stars against the inky black sky of her long, soft mane.

As if she notices his gaze, Kalasin turns toward him and smiles, her eyes soft and trusting.

And Ozorne abandons all logic and reason, takes her small hands in his, pulls her close, and kisses her for the first time.

**(thirty-four) things you find in a book**

When Kalasin was young, she had dreamed of finding a husband right out of her favorite fairy tales. Now, however, she is nineteen and much more knowledgeable. When she confesses her childish desire to her husband one night, he looks rather self-satisfied and strokes her hair, obviously rather flattered (if a little unnerved) about his relationship with her being compared to a fairy tale.

…Then, however, she ruins it. "Of course," Kalasin says conversationally, "I'm much wiser about the world now, and I'd have to say that fairy tales be damned; we bear _wonderful_ similarities to those sordid romance novels that Varice is always reading—"

Ozorne sighs almost imperceptibly. If it had been _anyone _else, he would have had him or her locked up in the dungeons to fester for a month. "Just what every man wants to hear."

**(thirty-five) shopping**

Ozorne is widely considered a genius. An _evil _genius, but a genius nevertheless. Despite this, he is criminally incapable of finding anniversary and birthday gifts for his wife.

On her fifteenth birthday, he gives her a dress he considers elegant and a diary. Kalasin privately considers the dress the most hideous thing she has ever seen in her entire life, and she really isn't the type of girl who writes in a diary.

(She wanted a _pony,_ damn him for not noticing the shameless hints!)

On her sixteenth birthday, he gives her the entire set of Imperial jewels.

(She would have settled for a kiss.)

On her seventeenth birthday, Ozorne _really _has to resist the temptation to give her something even more minimal than a strapless corset and short skirt to wear on hot summer days. Instead, he gives her a beautiful glass figurine of a pony.

(Kalasin secretly buys herself something more minimal than her usual summer wear, since Ozorne is so backward he probably would never even consider it. She thinks the glass pony is lovely, though, but hasn't he _still _got the hints that she would prefer a real pony?)

For the birthday that Ozorne celebrates a few days before her eighteenth, she corners him in their room, wearing said very minimal outfit she had purchased for herself a year ago. She takes advantage of his speechless state to inform him that she really does love him, but his birthday presents are _awful, _and tonight, she intends to give him something infinitely better than he's ever given her.

And she does.

**(thirty-six) serenity**

Kalasin sits, cross-legged, on the blanket under the tree, her expression one of abject joy.

Ozorne honestly considers making a "you-dragged-me-away-from-work-for-_this_?" quip, but the look of wonder on her face is enough to stop him before he even starts.

She takes his hand, distracting him. "Look."

He does look, and sees the third shooting star of the night streak across the dark sky. Somewhere between the fourth and the sixth occurrence, Ozorne forgets about work, fascinated despite himself.

They end up staying until midnight, when Kalasin falls asleep, her head resting against his shoulder. For the first time, Ozorne doesn't take her home immediately. Only when the last shooting star makes its way across its celestial frame does he pick her up gently and begin the walk to the palace.

**(thirty-seven) the nature of the universe**

The day Ozorne Tasikhe truly knows the universe is a twisted place is when he wakes up one day with Kalasin curled up against him, sleeping contentedly. He hasn't had an assassination attempt in months; there have been no threats of rebellion in the past year, and he has not had any reason to execute military operations in the same amount of time – which is honestly a record. Foreign affairs are doing as well as they ever have, and Galla and Maren have actually decided that they are not going to wage war against Carthak this year.

In a few minutes, Kalasin is going to wake up, try and hide from the sunlight under the covers, before reluctantly admitting that it is, indeed, morning. She will kiss him and he will let her.

Ozorne rests against the cushions for a moment, his arm wrapped protectively around his still-sleeping wife, as he wonders when, exactly, his life has gotten so strange.

Kalasin stirs a little, and his eyes drift toward her.

Well.

It's definitely not a _bad _kind of strange.

¤

Reviews appreciated!


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